guy got his balls out, and showed them. They were big, and they were brass. That’s one of my all time favorite football plays

Funny thing is, it worked except the bobble. Wasn’t like it got stuff like a Barry Sanders playoff run.

/earlier

]]>By: roger from ozhttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389286
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389286Simmons blows. So does this sabermetrics crap.
]]>By: PurdueMatthttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389285
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389285My favorite part of the Baseball Prospectus piece:

Grantland, Bill Simmons’s vanity project, has taken some space since its launch to discuss sabermetrics. My takeaway so far is that nobody involved with Grantland knows a thing about the subject.

]]>By: PurdueMatthttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389284
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389284My favorite part of the Deadspin response:

Who are these teams that leave their fans with sore bottoms? Lehrer doesn’t say. Literally. He does not name a single team or executive or player that illustrates this overreliance on statistics. At least Joe Morgan knew enough to blame Billy Beane for ruining baseball.

]]>By: jaywasherehttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389283
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389283I think a lot of people missed the point of the original article…
]]>By: spencer096http://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389282
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389282where did craggs write before deadspin?
]]>By: Gerard Portmanteauhttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389281
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389281

Huh?

Look, Craggs is a good writer, but when did he become the arbiter of uneven writing?

OOHHH, TOMMY CRAGGS!!!

/cowers in fear
//wanking motion

Basically, yes.

Scocca is a good writer too, but I’m not entirely sure where he’s coming from. You can’t just be anti-. That might be because I haven’t read enough of his work, of course, but it also might be because he’s a talented sophist. Or a computer program.

]]>By: Ty_Webb 1.0http://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389280
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389280SomeoneEveryone disagrees with me on the Internet! Shoot him Them!

I heard a rumor a week ago there was some trepidation (read: fear) among a few writers at Grantland about having their work dissected by the likes of Scocca and Tommy Craggs, and what Scocca did to Lehrer’s piece will only add to the rumor.

Huh?

Look, Craggs is a good writer, but when did he become the arbiter of uneven writing?

OOHHH, TOMMY CRAGGS!!!

/cowers in fear
//wanking motion

And Scocca wrote for Slate, which automatically makes me not take him seriously.

This all takes us back to the age-old stats vs. scouting argument, which is actually one big misstatement. As many before me have noted, stats are not in conflict with scouting. They’re two different tools that teams can use in evaluating players. Stats are merely a record of what happened on the field. They’re sometimes put in greater context, but they’re the results of the game nonetheless. Scouting is a more subjective, closer look at those same events, and it does include other aspects such as a player’s makeup. Taken together they can provide a team with a reliable player evaluation. Either part without the other, though, can miss important factors.

This paragraph should be enough to end all the fussin’ and the feudin’ about the subject

To whoever asked why people are so quick to rip apart Grantland pieces (maybe not for this piece in particular since it was rather odd), I think it’s pretty obvious. Many of them are hoping for the eyes of Bill Simmons to light up and force him to promptly fire off an email with an offer letter to come join the Grantland team.

]]>By: ATL_Badgerhttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389273
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389273Talking about this reminded me of that post Lebatard did here a while back as the Mariotti nonsense was going on.

LeBatard’s one of the few people in sports journalism that I believe has a brain and uses it well. I just wish he would stop being so naive about athletes and their behavior sometimes.

]]>By: coop247http://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389271
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389271I’m with The General. I was told Grantland was “intellectual” and “sophisticated” but its largely pop culture garbage, sports observations, and wrestling. That’s fine, but don’t tell me it’s anything new.
]]>By: ATL_Badgerhttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389270
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389270The deadspin layout is a couple of months old and we still fucking hate it.

I used to go to that site everyday. Now I barely pop in twice a week. None of the stuff on there is good anymore. They pumped up that ESPN book like it might bring the company down. (It didn’t) Deadspin hookup Failure? As a weekly feature? To the surprise of nobody here, I’ve had plenty of my own hookup failures. I don’t want to read about someone else’s that may or may not be embellished because they want to get it published on the site.

Grantland hasn’t made my website rotation yet. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to get out of it.

The metrics all said Johnny Lawrence was a lock, Daniel LaRusso didn’t fucking care (although at the time they didn’t know how to account for the crane kick)

]]>By: sportsdorkhttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389268
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389268Talking about this reminded me of that post Lebatard did here a while back as the Mariotti nonsense was going on. Not sure why, but I read it again and enjoyed it.
]]>By: phillymantis915http://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389267
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389267

The deadspin layout is a couple of months old and we still fucking hate it.

This. Can barely read Kotaku anymore and now it isn’t even working on my phone. Worst site redesign ever.

Thank you for writing this TBL. The backlash against Grantland has gotten insane.
I don’t understand the anger and obsession that much of the online sports writing community has towards Grantland. It seems like at least once a week since the launch of Grantland multiple writers have attacked a Grantland piece. IMHO talented writers like Craggs should be producing original pieces about sports instead of wasting their time attacking other peoples work. The online sports writing community seems to have turned into a cliquish group of high school girls who are calling the new girl in school a slut every chance

I blame dak, Junior and Ken T. They did it right, but it brought on a whole mess of shitty imitators who see ripping any article as a chance for page views and/or notoriety.

The deadspin layout is a couple of months old and we still fucking hate it.

That’s true, but I don’t think I’ve read a tweet about how much it sucks in a long time.

]]>By: Jason Liskhttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389262
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389262To whoever asked why people are so quick to rip apart Grantland pieces (maybe not for this piece in particular since it was rather odd), I think it’s pretty obvious. Many of them are hoping for the eyes of Bill Simmons to light up and force him to promptly fire off an email with an offer letter to come join the Grantland team.

Grantland gets nitpicked because it’s new shiny. And the Internet picks apart everything that is new and shiny. We REALLY fucking like new and shiny

The deadspin layout is a couple of months old and we still fucking hate it.

]]>By: The General Will Choke Youhttp://thebiglead.com/2011/06/29/will-the-last-blogger-who-takes-a-dump-on-jonah-lehrers-sabermetrics-piece-for-grantland-please-turn-off-the-lights/#comment-389259
http://thebiglead.com/?p=103977#comment-389259I think Grantland brought the backlash on themselves. When you take the pompous name of the site, add it to the hype it got before an article was published, then top it off with simmons, who I like but understand why others hate, you are asking for this type of vitro. Basically this is the Miami Heat of sports blogs/reporters, so when they don’t produce people are going to go right at them. They put the target on their back, so I think it is fair game to go at them.

Personally I look at the site like I look at the Simpsons. Better to have it there even if it isn’t as good as the old stuff, then to not have it at all. However, Katie Baker should be fired immediately or write an article that isn’t a 7th grade self interview.

I think there were valid criticisms, but I also think this is a good analogy.

Lisk, I agree with you that there are valid criticisms for Lehrer’s piece. I should have mentioned that as well. You did a fantastic job making your case today for why TO should be in the HOF. Great read and a good takedown of Pasquarelli’s piece. However, I would probably stop reading your pieces if every week you had a column which attacked a Pasquarelli article. At that point any valid criticism of Grantland is lost in the white noise of the online sports writing community attacking anything that Grantland puts out there.